Rough Day
by castielofasgard
Summary: [Lestrolly Bartender AU for a tumblr prompt] A lonely cop named Greg walks into a bar, Molly's bar to be exact, and she offers him a drink and someone to talk to.


"What can I get you?" Molly asked the newcomer as he slid onto the barstool. It was late and there was only about an hour and a half until the bar closed.

"Guinness, please," the man said, running a hand through his short grey hair.

"Coming right up."

She grabbed a glass and filled it to the brim, careful not to let the foam spill over, then brought it to the counter. The man set his card on the counter.

"Could you open a tab?" he asked.

"Of course. Rough day?"

"I'm a cop, every day is a rough day."

"Yes, I can see what you mean… I'm Molly, by the way."

"Greg," the man said, sipping his Guinness.

"Nice to meet you. Let me know when you need another drink," Molly said, then went about her duties.

A while later, Molly returned to the counter where Greg sat.

"Need a refill?" she offered.

"If it's not too much trouble."

"It's my job, Greg," she replied, pouring him another drink.

"You remembered my name," Greg said, sounding rather surprised.

"Well yeah. I like to try and know my customers' names. Especially the ones who sit at the bar. They're usually the ones who need it the most."

Molly set the fresh glass on the bar and looked at Greg.

"So tell me," she continued. "What kind of rough day was today?"

Greg took a drink before answering.

"Violent double homicide. A woman and her twelve year old girl. All signs pointing to the husband. So on a scale of one to ten with ten being the roughest day, today was an eleven."

"I'm sorry…."

It was all Molly could think of to say. She may have made a point of trying to remember the names of the people at her counter, but rarely did she engage beyond that and pouring their beer, and she really wasn't good at comforting conversation.

"It's okay. Part of the job. Just gets a bit tough when it's stuff like that," said Greg.

"I can imagine…" said Molly. "Well, not really, but I can see why it'd be tough. It's horrible."

"Yeah, it is."

"Well… I need to get back to work, just let me know if you need anything…"

"Thanks."

Molly served a few stragglers and gathered empty glasses from the tables. When she returned, Greg's glass was empty again.

"Can I get you anything else?" she asked.

"Can we just… talk?" Greg asked. "I know you're working, but…"

"Yeah. It's fine. There's hardly anyone left anyway," said Molly. She came around the counter and sat on a stool. "What do you want to talk about?"

"I dunno… yourself, maybe… just something besides this case," said Greg.

Molly smiled pityingly.

"Of course. Um… me…. I, uh… I have a cat named Toby who hates that I work late nights, I went to medical school and I'm working here to pay that off…"

"What are you hoping to go into? With the medical degree?"

"Well… I, um… I actually trained to do post-mortems," Molly admitted.

"Really?" Greg said, surprised. "A bit gruesome, isn't it?"

"Says the homicide detective," Molly countered.

"You got me there. But really, you don't want to just be a doctor or something?"

"No. I'm not very good at the comforting people aspect that goes along with doctoring."

"You're doing rather good at it now," said Greg.

"But I'm just talking."

Greg smiled at her.

"Sometimes that's enough."

Suddenly they were interrupted by a small commotion as the last few customers drunkenly struggled to vacate their table.

"Sorry, gotta take care of this," Molly said to Greg, getting up so she could close the group's tab and clean up their table.

It was just her, Greg, and her coworker left in the bar now and it was nearly closing time. As Molly returned to the counter, Greg stood up.

"I should go. You're closing up and I have to get back to this case in the morning," he said. "Thanks for talking with me. I really appreciate it."

"It was no trouble. I'll close your tab," said Molly.

She went to the register and completed the transaction, but before she handed his card back, she grabbed a napkin and a pen and jotted down her number. Then she handed both the napkin and the card to Greg.

"Let me know if you ever want to talk again," she said.

Greg looked at the napkin in his hand and smiled.

"I will. Good night."

"Good night," Molly replied.

Then he walked out the door.


End file.
